For each request type, you can define roles or specific employees who can review, approve, and close requests and purchase orders (if enabled for your company). You can also define that an approval step in the lifecycle is not relevant or needed for the company, for example, the review one.
The configured request type approval workflows can be flexible and based on the hierarchy levels at your company (for example, Second level manager), specific people (for example, budget owners of cost centers and defined managers of expense categories), or Payhawk roles (Payhawk accountants and Payhawk administrators).
Once a request type has been created, it will automatically be assigned an approval workflow based on he configuration you've set. Requests and purchase orders created before the new workflow will keep the previously applied one.
You can configure an approval workflow for requests of a specific request type either from Settings > Requests or from Settings > Workflows > Requests.
To update the workflow for a specific request type:
From the Payhawk web portal, navigate to Settings > Requests > Types.
Select the desired request type.
Go to its Workflow tab and click on Edit workflow.
Alternatively, click on Go to workflows and you'll be redirected to the Settings > Workflows > Requests screen.
Create an approval workflow that suits your requirements by following the steps for defining custom workflows and noting the following specifics that are valid for request types:
The Submit step is always visible.
The Review and Approve steps are optional for you to define. If any or both steps are irrelevant to your internal processes, you may skip them.
The Create purchase order step will be visible if purchase orders have been enabled for your company's Payhawk account.
The Receive step will be visible if receipt notes are required for the specific request type.
The Invoice step is always visible.
The Pay step includes workflows for bill and card payments of requests. You can define different approvals for matched and mismatched quantities.
The Close step is always visible. It includes predefined rules for automatically closing requests when the auto-close option is activated and also specifies the default roles authorized to manually close requests if auto-close is not used.
Whenever you need to set a workflow for a request lifecycle step, you can apply the steps for defining custom workflows. Alternatively, if any of the steps that can be skipped are unnecessary, you can remove them by clicking their three-dot menu and selecting Delete.
Click on Publish workflow to apply all the changes you've made.